By Johnna Pinholster
VALDOSTA — Stephen Findlay adds another voice in the fight against teenage drug and alcohol abuse.
The law enforcement officer has spent 18 years working as the DARE (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) Program administrator for the Valdosta Police Department in the Valdosta City School System.
Findlay views the program and his work with students as another way to reach them about how decisions made now can affect the rest of their lives.
“It’s one more voice talking about not doing harmful things,” Findlay said. “Smoking, drinking, other drugs and, of course, our main focus is on tobacco, alcohol, marijuana and the inhalants, since those are sort of the gateway drugs as they are known.”
Findlay has been in Valdosta since 1986. Before joining the Valdosta Police Department, he held jobs in a variety of professions. A Marine Corps veteran who served in Vietnam, he also worked at an insurance company and Belk before becoming a police officer.
“Being a police officer was just a road to what I’m doing now,” he said.
Findlay doesn’t exactly remember how he got involved in the DARE Program. He either volunteered or was asked to participate, he said.
He figures it was a bit of both. In August of 1992, he and Jim Griffin, now a Lowndes County Sheriff’s Office deputy, went to DARE training.
Findlay viewed the DARE Program as a chance to do something else and work in the school systems.
The thing he remembers most about that first training program was the importance of being accurate when teaching, he said.
“What we do is back up the parents because the parents are still number one,” Findlay said. “But sometimes when a kid hears it from somebody else it sinks in a little bit.”
Findlay said the best part about working with students is seeing the light go on, when comprehension of a lesson is realized.
“Now one little lesson does not solve anybody’s serious issues obviously,” he said.
The first classes Findlay taught were at Southeast Elementary and West Gordon in the fall of 1992.
“I like teaching and I enjoy working with kids,” Findlay said.
But fifth grade is the lowest grade he likes to work with. While he does gun safety classes for younger children, pre-teens and teenagers allow for a more give and take discussion, he said.
When Findlay started the program he requested that he be allowed to work with the private schools.
“I wanted to try to reach everybody,” he said. “So, they let me do that and I’ve been doing private schools ever since.”
The fight to inform students is personal for Findlay. At 27, while still in the Marines, Findlay’s father died. The elder Findlay died before he was 50 and his abuse of alcohol is what killed him, he said.
In 1997 Findlay added seventh graders to his coverage area.
The police department added another officer, Bret Welch, to the DARE Program to help cover the added students.
Now Findlay handles seventh grade for the public and private schools and fifth grade for the private schools.
Both the fifth and seventh grade classes are given workbooks that Findlay bases his lessons around, he said.
In fifth grade, Findlay covers decision making, tobacco use, alcohol use, inhalants and marijuana.
An important part of the program is a discussion on friendship and how both peer and personal pressure can affect one’s judgment.
He also encourages the students to write down cool things they like to do at the end of each lesson.
“What’s always interesting is not a single one of the cool things they do that they ever write has anything to do with smoking, drinking or other drugs,” Findlay said. “What I point out to them and emphasize is that you got all sorts of stuff to do and none of it involves smoking, drinking or any other drugs.”
In seventh grade, Findlay discusses the impact of decision making.
“The hardest thing for a teenager to do is think,” Findlay said. “We’ve all been teenagers and teenagers are very impulsive, and it’s the nature of the beast, and if you can get them to stop and think just for a minute or two, a lot of times they will stay out of a situation that causes the problem, especially where it concerns things that could hurt them.”
Being respectful, active listening, the influence of drugs and alcohol on the brain and non-violent conflict resolution are all discussed in seventh grade.
“I emphasize to them that the problem is not getting angry because everybody gets angry. The problem is how to deal with it and that each one of us owns our own anger,” he said.
During his lessons Findlay said he uses an annual University of Michigan survey that polls drug, alcohol and tobacco abuse by high schoolers to shed light on just who is using and abusing.
Most of the time the percentage of those abusing is much lower than what students perceive it to be, he said.
For alcohol, tobacco and inhalants, use is actually trending downwards, an encouraging sign, Findlay said.
“When you get a class where they really interact with you, it’s a joy and I enjoy that part of teaching,” Findlay said. “It varies so much from class to class.”
It’s important for the DARE Program to be in both fifth grade and seventh grade because it impacts students at critical moments. In fifth grade, students are just beginning to deal with peer pressure and at seventh grade they are right in the thick of it and finding out who their friends are, he said.
Though Findlay cautions students to not partake in drugs or alcohol, parents are over 21.
“I don’t condemn any parent for drinking or smoking because they are over 21,” Findlay said. “They can make their own decisions.”
Some students carry the message home to their parents anyway in an attempt to stop the behavior.
“I try to tell the kids you can encourage your parents to quit smoking, but you can’t tell them because you can’t tell adults what to do,” Findlay said.
Findlay’s own children and stepchildren have been through the DARE Program, he said.
His youngest, 13-year-old Hannah is at Valdosta Middle School and 14-year-old Matthew is at Valdosta High School.
His eldest son, Stephen, went to Lowndes High School and now works in Arkansas.
His stepchildren, Candace and Michael, both live in Valdosta.
Findlay and his wife Linda have been married for 14 years.
Findlay said he sees former students all the time that tell him they are not on drugs.
“It’s stories like that that boost you,” he said. “Personally it feels good when they do that and then it tells me that the program works.”
They also prove the theory that the program doesn’t work wrong, Findlay said.
“I get annoyed at some reports, either from the government or news or whatever, saying DARE doesn’t work,” Findlay said. “The thing with DARE (is that) if they expect it to be perfect it’s not going to happen, and if they expect it to solve every drug problem there is nothing that’s going to do that.”
The program does get the information out though, he said.
“It does have a positive impact, and it serves a purpose,” Findlay said. “No, they are not going to remember every little thing that they did, but if they remember that these things can hurt you, some of them very much, and if I can teach them to think a little bit, then I’m a success.”
Findlay said he is very aware that not all students he teaches make it.
One student told Findlay that he wanted to be a drug dealer in the early 1990s.
“He made it and somebody he sold drugs to died and he went to jail for murder,” he said.
Though Findlay said he does encounter some hard cases in his classes, for the most part the students are very friendly and accepting.
One student proved to be a big pain at Valdosta Middle School, Findlay said.
Several years later as Findlay watched the same student walk at graduation, the student approached him and shook his hand, he said.
“My goal is the same as any of the teachers in one sense, in that we want to give them enough information so they can grow up and do what they want to do in a productive way,” Findlay said.
